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June 15, 2000

Group Helps Artisans Around the World Market Their Crafts

Adam Bowles

(ANS) -- Several years ago an American crafts designer traveling through Honduras came across a group of women turning cornhusks into flower decorations and earning a meager living by selling them for $2 a week.

Luckily for these craftswomen, their U.S. visitor was a consulting designer for Aid to Artisans, a Farmington, Conn.-based group dedicated to helping artisans around the world find markets for their goods.

The nonprofit group has since helped these Third World workers create a new, improved product -- cornhusks turned into roses and entwined into wreaths of twisted vines -- and trained several hundred other Honduran women in the craft.

National stores Dansk and Pottery Barn recently ordered $23,000 of the handmade wreaths, and an export company began shipping out nearly $1 million worth of the craft items this year.

Since it began in 1976, Aid to Artisans has specialized in projects like this. The group's goal is to help disadvantaged artisans worldwide establish handcraft-based businesses that can compete locally and in the global market. By doing so, the group says it helps preserve artistic traditions by allowing individuals to continue their trade and earn higher wages.

"We help artisans who are underprivileged," said Aid to Artisans spokesman Brent DiGiorgio. "For a lot of artisans the craft side is second nature, but the business side is totally foreign."

The organization, which includes design and business consultants, volunteers and a board of directors, has helped local artisan associations, nonprofit intermediaries, craft businesses and importers in more than 30 countries. Every year, Aid to Artisans awards up to 40 grants, typically ranging from $500 to $1,500. Recent examples of its work include:

· -- A $1,750 grant to a small group of Bosnian women artisans, many of whom became the primary wage earners after their husbands were either killed or maimed during the country's recent war, for booth space at the March 2000 International Kids Fashion Show in New York City. The group, Bosnian Handicrafts, showcased its knitting and weaving products and received orders totaling $15,000.

· -- A Haitian wood and ironworks group created a floor-standing candelabra with the help of Aid to Artisans specialists, and eventually Sundance catalog ordered 100 units for about $10,000.

The nonprofit group often works with government organizations such as USAID, Inter-American Development Bank and local governments, as well as nongovernmental organizations such as Save the Children, the International Executive Service Corps, Counterpart Foundation and World Learning.

Aid to Artisans does not buy or sell crafts. Instead, it connects artisans with international markets.

In this process, artisans are first matched with international designers who train them at workshops and seminars in product development, production, business training, sales, marketing and long-term sustainability.

Often the products are modified in order to capture a larger market. Sometimes traditional crafts are revived or new products are created from local design motifs. Consultants make sure that the new businesses can export their products. That means the workers must learn about quality control standards, build better equipment, learn faster and easier production methods and set realistic delivery schedules.

The artisans are then linked to buyers from large stores and catalogs worldwide at international trade shows, such as the New York International Gift Show, which is held twice a year and attracts more than 50,000 buyers nationwide. It is the largest wholesale trade show in the United States for gifts and decorative accessories.

Aid to Artisans products have appeared in stores and exclusive catalogs and collections, including Sundance, Smith & Hawkin, Neiman Marcus, Pier I Imports and Crate & Barrel. They also have been featured in such magazines as Metropolitan Home, House & Garden and Bon Appetit.

Gay Ellis, owner of Samii, a home-based clothing and home accessory business in Sheffield, Vt., was immediately impressed with a Hungarian booth sponsored by Aid to Artisans at the New York International Gift Show in 1991.

"I saw this cut felt applique technique that I had seen primarily used on shepherds' cloaks," Ellis said. "I thought, 'This is an amazing technique. I'd love to apply it to my clothing.'"

The organization matched her with a Hungarian women's craft cooperative, which she visited that same year to meet the workers. Ellis now works with an agent in that country, who takes Ellis' orders and distributes them to up to 40 workers, who then create lapels, brims and pocket flaps using felt applique techniques.

"Aid to Artisans ensures that there isn't going to be any child labor or unpleasant working conditions," Ellis said. "The techniques that I have found in the countries Aid to Artisans works in, and then translating them into my own style, has certainly enhanced the look of my entire collection. It is an interesting way to open doors both for them and for me."

Ellis' success with the Hungarian artisans encouraged her to launch Lanya, a collection of couture-quality garments for women and children featuring handcrafted trims from European artisans.

Lanya means "daughter" in Hungarian. Ellis said she chose the name to symbolize the way the craft is passed down from generation to generation.

"I think that the work (the group) is doing has great importance as the world loses the individual spirit of countries," Ellis said. "As we become pan-global it is important to remember there are these wonderful differences, and Aid to Artisans works to preserve these customs."

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Adam Bowles is an education reporter for the Norwich Bulletin in Connecticut and a free-lance writer who has contributed to The New York Times.

Contacts:

Aid to Artisans Inc., Farmington, Conn., 860-677-1649 ; 860-676-2170; Web site: www.aid2artisans.org

Gay Ellis, Samii, Sheffield, Vt., 802-525-1131, fax: 802-525-6618; Web site: www.samiiland.com

Background:

Julie Atkinson, Loans and Sevices Coordinator, Craft Emergency Relief Fund, Montpelier, Vt., 802-229-2306, Web site: http://www.craftemergency.org. The Fund helps independent craftspeople recover from natural disasters or illness through grants and loans.